.svg)
The home improvement segment continues to face challenges in 2025, but a deeper look into the data for Home Depot and Lowe's reveals a nuanced story of sector-wide headwinds, divergent brand performances, and potential signs of recovery.
Existing-home sales, which can often serve as a powerful indicator for how the home improvement retail sector may behave, are at some of their lowest rates in years. This housing market softness has translated into lowered consumer activity at project-driven stores like The Home Depot. Visits to the home improvement chain were down by -3.9% YoY in Q1 2025 before moderating to a 2.2% decline in Q2.
Monthly visit data offers a more granular view of Home Depot's performance. Despite a sharp YoY decline of 9.2% in February – likely due to inclement weather and the leap year comparison – visits recovered quickly. By July, foot traffic was down by just 2.5% YoY.
These trends point to a cautious stabilization, perhaps driven by shifting economic realities. With home equities up roughly 6% YoY and over half of U.S. homes at least 40 years old, homeowners are undertaking necessary repairs – and Home Depot's status as a contractor hub may help boost visits as economic concerns cool. The company is also leaning into its strengths and driving sales through other channels, such as its B2B offerings, helping position it for growth as market conditions improve.
Lowe's also faced a challenging first half of 2025, with foot traffic trends mirroring the broader home improvement sector's struggles. Quarterly visits declined by 3.7% in Q1 and 3.8% in Q2 on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, reflecting persistent pressure on consumer spending. But visit gaps narrowed by the end of Q2, and by July 2025 were just 1.1% lower than in July 2024.
Like Home Depot, Lowe's was likely impacted by the economic uncertainties and a slower housing market. But unlike Home Depot, Lowe’s still relies on DIYers for the majority of its business. Executives blamed unfavorable weather for pushing back the spring home improvement season, which led to softer DIY performance at Lowe’s in their first fiscal quarter (ending May 2nd 2025) and may have contributed to Lowe's underperformance relative to Home Depot.
Drilling down into regional foot traffic trends for Home Depot and Lowe’s in July reveals that success in the home improvement sector in 2025 is highly localized. Even during the recent challenging period, both chains experienced pockets of YoY visit growth, particularly clustered in parts of the Midwest and Southeast. For Home Depot, traffic trends were strongest in North Dakota, where YoY visits grew by 7.6% – but visit growth was clustered throughout the region. Lowe’s also enjoyed visit growth across several states, with its strongest performance centered in Midwestern states like Indiana (+4.4%) and Kentucky (+2.8%).
These geographic patterns highlight how demand in the home improvement segment shows significant variance by market, with both chains appearing to benefit in areas with steadier home sales. This is a reminder that, while nationwide visits are lower than in previous years, pockets of strong local demand can still provide a significant boost for each brand.
Moving forward, the home improvement segment has plenty of ways to adapt to a softening economic environment and slowing home sales. Will home improvement visits pick up? Or will housing market challenges continue to spill over to foot traffic?
Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
The Lollapalooza festival, held annually in Chicago's Grant Park, is one of the world's most iconic music events. We dove into the location intelligence data to explore how the festival impacts tourism to the Windy City – and understand the characteristics and preferences of the audience that flocks to the city each year.
The festival acts as a powerful magnet for tourists, particularly those from nearby regions. During Lollapalooza, the number of domestic tourists to Chicago (i.e., out-of-market visitors traveling more than 50 miles) surged by 180.7% compared to an average Thursday through Sunday – and by 43.8% compared to the already-busy summer period of June and July.
But a closer look at the data reveals that the greatest increase came from visitors living 50 to 100 miles away, with a massive 343.3% increase over the 12-month average. In contrast, the smallest increase stemmed from long-distance travelers journeying 250 miles or more, with visits up just 145.7% from the average. This strong local pull shows that Lollapalooza is a regional tourism powerhouse, driving an incredible surge in visits from a concentrated market that views the festival as a premiere, must-attend event.
This substantial influx of tourists also brought a more affluent crowd than usual. Summer – peak Chicago tourist season – attracts a slightly wealthier crowd than the rest of the year. But the median household income (HHI) of visitors’ home areas hit $89.7K during Lollapalooza, a clear jump from both the June-July average of $83.9K and the 12-month average of $82.5K.
The festival’s audience is also more diverse than its reputation might suggest. The share of “Young Professionals” in the visitor mix rose to 16.6% during Lollapalooza, up from 14.5% during the summer, while the share of “Ultra Wealthy Families” climbed to 7.6% from 6.4% and the share of “Sunset Boomers” rose to 5.1% from 4.7%. The increase in these segments shows the festival’s broad appeal, attracting not just young people but also older, established, and affluent families.
In addition to being wealthier, Lollapalooza attendees had a distinctly different lifestyle profile. Compared to both the 12-month and summer averages, visitors were more likely to be married couples and to enjoy wine and good coffee. Notably, the share of visitors who worked from home increased to 18.7% during the festival, compared to a 17.0% summertime benchmark. These lifestyle markers signal a premium, high-value consumer that presents an ideal audience for local businesses and sponsors looking to create targeted on-site experiences, from specialized pop-up cafes to wine-tasting events.
Overall, these findings highlight Lollapalooza’s potent role in supercharging Chicago’s tourism sector. Beyond the simple boost in overall visitor numbers, the festival draws a more affluent and distinctive demographic than the typical summer crowd – making it a powerful economic engine for the city.
For more data-driven insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
For many Americans, Walmart functions as a grocer and essential-goods provider. Target’s competitive advantage, meanwhile, lies in higher-margin discretionary categories – stylish home goods, affordable fashion, and exclusive brand collaborations. In the face of ongoing macroeconomic pressures, both retailers are adopting elements of each other’s approaches: Walmart is seeking to elevate its image and expand discretionary offerings through a rebrand, while Target is ramping up its focus on essentials. But Q2 2025 location intelligence data reveals that the two brands’ immediate challenges remain distinctly different.
Walmart has been thriving in recent months, exceeding analyst expectations with solid sales growth driven largely by a profitable e-commerce segment. Last quarter (ending April 30th, 2025), Walmart U.S. posted comparable sales growth (excluding fuel) of +4.5%, with e-commerce contributing approximately 3.5 percentage points to that growth. And in June 2025, the company built on this momentum with the debut of its “Walmart, Who Knew” campaign – part of a strategic rebranding highlighting expanded, premium product offerings alongside enhanced e-commerce capabilities – such as one-hour express delivery and an online marketplace of over half a billion items.
Against this backdrop, Walmart’s stable YoY foot traffic – hovering between +0.8% and -1.6% monthly May through July – is a powerful signal of its continued strength. The data validates the company’s omnichannel strategy, indicating an ability to grow its digital business without materially sacrificing its foundational in-store visitor base.
In contrast, Target has faced meaningful challenges, with YoY same-store visit gaps ranging from 2.2% to 9.7% since February 2025. Like Walmart, Target’s online growth has been a bright spot – last quarter, the company reported a 4.7% increase in digital comp sales, aided by more than 35% growth in same-day delivery. But this was not enough to offset a 5.7% decline in in-store comp sales. And though consumer reactions to Target’s recent policy updates do appear to have contributed to the retailer’s softening YoY performance, persistent challenges point to a more fundamental shift in consumer preferences amid discretionary cutbacks.
Both Walmart and Target are borrowing elements of each other’s playbooks. But consumer visitation data shows that while Walmart and Target can learn from each other, they service fundamentally different shopping missions.
Walmart’s vast scale and extensive grocery selection make it a prime destination for habitual, necessity-driven shopping. Between May and July 2025, about 34.0% of shoppers visited Walmart at least four times a month. Target’s 14% frequent visitor share, on the other hand, reflects its role as a more occasional destination centered on discovery-led shopping experiences – such as its successful Kate Spade collaboration, hailed by the company as the most successful design collab in a decade. While strengthening essentials plays to the current economic climate and likely contributed to the modest increase in Target’s frequent visitors over the past year, the retailer’s future success depends on sharpening – not blurring – its core strengths.
Walmart’s foot traffic stability combined with proven ecommerce growth positions it well to continue outperforming, especially as consumer caution favors essentials and convenience. Furthermore, the retailer’s rebranding and push into broader, discretionary categories may help attract higher-income consumers who are trading down.
Target, for its part, faces a more difficult strategic balancing act in the months ahead. Augmenting its offerings with compelling essentials will be critical. But as demonstrated by the strong performance of retailers like Five Below and T.J. Maxx, there still exists a healthy market for discretionary treasure hunting. Ultimately, Target’s ability to reignite growth will depend on its success in rejuvenating its competitive edge in the discretionary market – a task likely to be further complicated by anticipated tariffs.
For more data-driven retail insights, follow Placer.ai/anchor.
The office recovery is back in full swing. Major employers such as Samsung, Google, and Starbucks have tightened return-to-office (RTO) policies in recent months. And though hybrid work remains prevalent across industries, Q2 2025 saw a majority of Fortune 100 employees subject to full-time in-office mandates – up from just 5.0% in Q2 2023.
In June, accumulating RTO mandates helped shrink the post-pandemic office visit gap to 27.4% compared to the same period in 2019. And July 2025 set a new record for office attendance, with visits down just 21.8% relative to July 2019 (both Julys had 22 working days) – making it the single busiest in-office month since COVID.
Stark regional differences remain, however, between major business hubs nationwide. New York City, where many employees are subject to the stricter in-office requirements of the finance world, saw positive (+1.3%) year-over-six-year (Yo6Y) office foot traffic growth in July 2025 – a first since Placer.ai began tracking these trends. Miami, which has developed a thriving financial sector of its own, followed closely behind, effectively closing its visit gap with a 0.1% lag.
Atlanta and Dallas also made considerable headway – both markets saw visit gaps dip below 20% compared to 2019. Meanwhile, Denver – an emerging hub for tech startups and one of the most remote-friendly labor markets in the U.S. – took up the rear, while San Francisco inched up two notches in the rankings, beating out both Denver and Los Angeles.
Indeed, San Francisco appears to be in the midst of a major revival, with rising rents, improving public sentiment, and waves of new restaurant, retail, and small business openings breathing fresh life into a city once dismissed as stuck in a “doom loop”. And in July 2025, the City by the Bay once again topped the year-over-year (YoY) office recovery charts, outpacing all other analyzed hubs with remarkable 21.6% visit growth – more tangible evidence of the progress San Francisco continues to make.
If past experience is any guide, the road to office recovery will continue to be anything but linear. RTO policies remain far from uniform, and hybrid work continues to serve as a key baseline for many organizations. Still, July 2025 seems to mark a meaningful RTO tipping point, with numerous markets making substantial progress toward pre‐COVID office foot traffic levels.
Follow Placer.ai/anchor for more office visitation insights.
Same-store visit growth at TJX chains in recent months exceeded the company's official guidance of 2-3% same-store sales growth for Q2 FY26 (May 4 - August 2, 2025), aligning with analyst expectations for an earnings beat.
The largest growth in same-store visits went to HomeGoods, which continues to be a key growth engine for TJX, with its outperformance stemming from a multi-faceted competitive edge. Its consistent lead over the core apparel banners, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, may be due to its more defensible position in the less-crowded off-price home category. And when compared to its sister brand, Homesense, HomeGoods' superior performance may be attributed to its significant brand maturity and a merchandise mix centered on higher-frequency, smaller-ticket items. This positions the banner effectively to capture discretionary spending from consumers seeking affordable indulgences in the current economic environment.
All banners experienced YoY growth in overall traffic, but the strongest growth went to the latest newest additions to the company's U.S. portfolio – Homesense and Sierra, suggesting that both brands have a long runway for unit potential.
Sierra is engineered to capture a significant share of the lucrative outdoor and active lifestyle market, a space that critically lacks a dominant, national, off-price competitor, giving it a clearer and more defensible runway for explosive growth. In contrast, while Homesense plays the vital role of deepening TJX's penetration in the home category with larger-scale items like furniture, it enters a more contested field and must contend with established competition from other discount and value-oriented furniture retailers.
Both expansions are ultimately underpinned by TJX's core competency: leveraging its world-class buying organization and real estate expertise to dominate new off-price segments and capture a larger share of total consumer discretionary spending.
This push into new product categories is happening in parallel with a push into new markets. Year-over-year analysis reveals TJX has systematically expanded its rural and semi-rural household penetration across all banners – aligning with management's stated focus on "smaller markets and smaller footprint stores" as identified growth opportunities. With TJX planning around 130 net new stores in 2025, this rural expansion strategy provides a credible pathway for continued domestic growth in an increasingly competitive retail landscape.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
The information, data, analyses and opinions presented herein do not constitute investment advice; are provided solely for informational purposes and therefore are not an offer to buy or sell a security; and are not warranted to be correct, complete or accurate. By means of this publication, Placer Labs Inc. (“Placer”) is not rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax or other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor.
Placer shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this publication. The opinions and data presented are as of the date written and are subject to change without notice. The information contained herein is the proprietary property of Placer and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, or used in any manner, without the prior written consent of Placer.
As the U.S. economy enters the second half of 2025, evidence is mounting that consumers are pulling back on discretionary purchases. This possibility was something we recently discussed when highlighting the divergence between industrial and retail activity. While last week's Amazon Prime Day and other sales events drove a temporary surge in visits for big-ticket and back-to-school items, persistent macroeconomic uncertainty and the first real impacts of tariff-related price increases appear to be taking a toll on consumer confidence. With sentiment remaining fragile, households are becoming more selective, prioritizing essential spending while cutting back on discretionary purchases and travel.
Recently, Placer’s analyst team looked at visitation trends for airports, but we’re also seeing a slowdown in car travel based on visitation data to gas stations. After a sluggish February, foot traffic to gas stations and convenience stores has continued to show year-over-year declines through the spring and into the summer. This trend points to more than just fluctuating fuel prices; it reflects a conscious pullback by consumers who appear to be consolidating trips and reducing non-essential driving. This financial anxiety is causing many to shorten or delay vacation plans, resulting in weaker foot traffic at airports and fewer long-distance road trips.
Our analysis confirms that the traditional summer vacation is being reshaped by this economic uncertainty. Using our new Markets data, we’ve seen a decrease in the average miles traveled during the first half of 2025 for roughly two-thirds of the top 25 most populated markets in the U.S.
This has led to a rise in shorter "micro-cations" rather than extended, long-haul journeys. Consequently, while people are still traveling, the overall distance covered per trip has decreased, a sentiment that also extends to air travel, where a slowdown in both leisure and corporate bookings reflects a broad pullback on expensive, long-distance commitments in favor of more predictable, regional getaways.
As we move through July, the consumer narrative for the second half of 2025 is being defined by a strategic retreat in discretionary spending, particularly travel. While major sales events can still create temporary bursts of activity, the underlying trend shows a more cautious consumer responding to economic pressures by reducing non-essential driving, shortening vacation distances, and opting for more budget-friendly "micro-cations." This shift away from long-haul travel, visible in both gas station and airport traffic data, signals a significant recalibration of household budgets that will likely shape the broader retail and travel landscape for the remainder of the year.
This report leverages location intelligence data to analyze the auto dealership market in the United States. By looking at visit trends to branded showrooms, used car lots, and mixed inventory dealerships – and analyzing the types of visitors that visit each category – this white paper sheds light on the state of car dealership space in 2023.
Prior to the pandemic and throughout most of 2020, visits to both car brand and used-only dealerships followed relatively similar trends. But the two categories began to diverge in early 2021.
Visits to car brand dealerships briefly returned to pre-pandemic levels in mid-2021, but traffic fell consistently in the second half of the year as supply-chain issues drove consistent price increases. So despite the brief mid-year bump, 2021 ended with overall new car sales – as well as overall foot traffic to car brand dealerships – below 2019 levels. Visits continued falling in 2022 as low inventory and high prices hampered growth.
Meanwhile, although the price for used cars rose even more (the average price for a new and used car was up 12.1% and 27.1% YoY, respectively, in September 2021), used cars still remained, on average, more affordable than new ones. So with rising demand for alternatives to public transportation – and with new cars now beyond the reach of many consumers – the used car market took off and visits to used car dealerships skyrocketed for much of 2021 and into 2022. But in the second half of last year, as gas prices remained elevated – tacking an additional cost onto operating a vehicle – visits to used car dealerships began falling dramatically.
Now, the price of both used and new cars has finally begun falling slightly. Foot traffic data indicates that the price drops appear to be impacting the two markets differently. So far this year, sales and visits to dealerships of pre-owned vehicles have slowed, while new car sales grew – perhaps due to the more significant pent-up demand in the new car market. The ongoing inflation, which has had a stronger impact on lower-income households, may also be somewhat inhibiting used-car dealership visit growth. At the same time, foot traffic to used car dealerships did remain close to or slightly above 2019 levels for most of 2023, while visits to branded dealerships were significantly lower year-over-four-years.
The situation remains dynamic – with some reports of prices creeping back up – so the auto dealership landscape may well continue to shift going into 2024.
With car prices soaring, the demand for pre-owned vehicles has grown substantially. Analyzing the trade area composition of leading dealerships that sell used cars reveals the wide spectrum of consumers in this market.
Dealerships carrying a mixed inventory of both new and used vehicles seem to attract relatively high-income consumers. Using the STI: Popstats 2022 data set to analyze the trade areas of Penske Automotive, AutoNation, and Lithia Auto Stores – which all sell used and new cars – reveals that the HHI in the three dealerships’ trade areas is higher than the nationwide median. Differences did emerge within the trade areas of the mixed inventory car dealerships, but the range was relatively narrow – between $77.5K to $84.5K trade area median HHI.
Meanwhile, the dealerships selling exclusively used cars – DriveTime, Carvana, and CarMax – exhibited a much wider range of trade area median HHIs. CarMax, the largest used-only car dealership in the United States, had a yearly median HHI of $75.9K in its trade area – just slightly below the median HHI for mixed inventory dealerships Lithia Auto Stores and AutoNation and above the nationwide median of $69.5K. Carvana, a used car dealership that operates according to a Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) model, served an audience with a median HHI of $69.1K – more or less in-line with the nationwide median. And DriveTime’s trade areas have a median HHI of $57.6K – significantly below the nationwide median.
The variance in HHI among the audiences of the different used-only car dealerships may reflect the wide variety of offerings within the used-car market – from virtually new luxury vehicles to basic sedans with 150k+ miles on the odometer.
Visits to car brands nationwide between January and September 2023 dipped 0.9% YoY, although several outliers reveal the potential for success in the space even during times of economic headwinds.
Visits to Tesla’s dealerships have skyrocketed recently, perhaps thanks to the company’s frequent price cuts over the past year – between September 2022 and 2023, the average price for a new Tesla fell by 24.7%. And with the company’s network of Superchargers gearing up to serve non-Tesla Electric Vehicles (EVs), Tesla is finding room for growth beyond its already successful core EV manufacturing business and positioning itself for a strong 2024.
Japan-based Mazda used the pandemic as an opportunity to strengthen its standing among U.S. consumers, and the company is now reaping the fruits of its labor as visits rise YoY. Porsche, the winner of U.S New & World Report Best Luxury Car Brand for 2023, also outperformed the wider car dealership sector. Kia – owned in part by Hyundai – and Hyundai both saw their foot traffic increase YoY as well, thanks in part to the popularity of their SUV models.
Analyzing dealerships on a national level can help car manufacturers make macro-level decisions on marketing, product design, and brick-and-mortar fleet configurations. But diving deeper into the unique characteristics of each dealership’s trade area on a state level reveals differences that can serve brands looking to optimize their offerings for their local audience.
For example, analyzing the share of households with children in the trade areas of four car brand dealership chains in four different states reveals significant variation across the regional markets.
Nationwide, Tesla served a larger share of households with children than Kia, Ford, or Land Rover. But focusing on California shows that in the Golden State, Kia’s trade area population included the largest share of this segment than the other three brands, while Land Rover led this segment in Illinois. Meanwhile, Ford served the smallest share of households with children on a nationwide basis – but although the trend held in Illinois and Pennsylvania, California Ford dealerships served more households with children than either Tesla or Land Rover.
Leveraging location intelligence to analyze car dealerships adds a layer of consumer insights to industry provided sales numbers. Visit patterns and audience demographics reveal how foot traffic to used-car lots, mixed inventory dealerships, and manufacturers’ showrooms change over time and who visits these businesses on a national or regional level. These insights allow auto industry stakeholders to assess current demand, predict future trends, and keep a finger on the pulse of car-purchasing habits in the United States.
